


Don't Sleep

by cecilantro



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 17:12:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14794599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: Caleb wasdead, and then he wasn't, and Molly doesn't sleep.





	Don't Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> So the javelin and caleb fucked me up bad enough but imagine being calebs friends and watching him die and not get up

Molly turns that split second too late, at the sound of the javelin _hitting_ Caleb rather than the usual huff of weapons being prepared and he curses his own name for not getting there in time to blind the Ogre, he wants to turn and run to him but he _can’t,_ he’s too locked in combat and he knows that Jester will get there first.   
Oh, but it’s a terrible sight. The tears at the edges of Caleb’s eyes, and Molly knows they’re not so much pain as they are shock, when something so horrible happens he knows it just… doesn’t hurt. Like thinking you’ve been punched when you’ve really been stabbed. Molly’s had that a few times.   
Caleb’s hands move to it and hold it in place, he looks wildly around and meets Nott’s eyes as she begins to flee and caws over her shoulder,   
_“Modern Literature!”_   
Caleb pulls, pulls, pulls, and Molly sees the scream boil in his throat as the javelin comes free and blood begins to pour and then the arrow hits him. Right in the heart.   
Molly pushes his scimitar hard to give himself the room to be horrified, he traces the path of the arrow back…   
To Nott.   
She pulls the hand crossbow back up and turns to grin to the goblin beside her and he jots it down that he _will_ kill her. Personally. How could she _turn_ on Caleb like this? _How_ and Caleb hits the floor, face-first beside the javelin and dangerously close to the campfire.   
Molly shouts Jester’s name. He thinks he does, but then there’s a goblin on him and he has to turn his attention back and thrash and then,   
_“CALEB!”_   
Jester has finally been freed up to move and Molly pushes _hard_ he needs the space, turns and Jester is glowing over Caleb, hands on his head and his back where there’s a patch of blood, and the glow fades,   
And Caleb doesn’t move.   
Jester is hyperventilating, Molly can see from here- he parries away an arrow aimed for him without looking- she sobs over Caleb as she screeches to the others that it’s not working.   
And Molly loses track. Of her, of Caleb, of himself, of the world around him, even Yasha bursting into her black-smoke rage can’t draw him up again.   
He sees Caleb pop up and nearly collapses with the relief. Nearly cries where he is.

 

Caleb and Nott sit side-by-side, out from under the cart, and Molly doesn’t sleep. It pours heavy with rain, and Molly doesn’t sleep. It’s soothing, cathartic, Jester slips away peacefully beside him, but Molly can’t. Molly doesn’t sleep.  
When Caleb wakes Yasha for her watch, Molly still doesn’t _fucking_ sleep and he’s not sure if he wants to, really. He watches Nott crawl under the corner of the cart, that’s fine, and Caleb sits up against a wheel and Molly decides, fuck it, if he isn’t going to sleep, then he’s going to collar Caleb and give him something real to die about.   
Molly crawls out from under the cart and muffles his splutter of disgust at the rain, too focused on Caleb to bother. Caleb, who hasn’t noticed that he’s there yet, head tilted back and eyes closed and throat bared for any enemy who, like Nott, might choose to put an arrow through it.   
Molly resists the urge to wrap his hands around that wonderfully exposed soft spot and throttle him. But oh, Gods, he wants to.   
Well, he does on a normal day, but this reason is borne less of interest and more of pure, unbridled rage, which stems from his concern and relief.   
What are words? Molly forgets them as he comes to Caleb’s side and stops, still, staring, because what can he do to make himself stop feeling this horrid storm of emotions that he’s caught up in?   
He sits, hard, next to Caleb. It makes a slapping sound in the wet rain, and before Caleb can whip awake, Molly is leaning up into him and then all of his anger and resolve melts at that first warmth.   
And he cries.   
Bursts straight into rather noisy tears, though Caleb is most likely the only one that hears over the sound of the pouring rain, and Molly is on his shoulder into the crook of his neck. Whatever Caleb had planned on doing, it follows Molly’s rage to disappear into a fine mist, and he instead reacts quite instinctively, and wraps himself up around Mollymauk, lets him cry.   
Molly burrows closer, he needs every bit of warmth, ever fine pressure, every angle, pushes up against Caleb’s chest and balls his fist at Caleb’s collar in just the right place against his throat, just to feel each breath he takes, the flicker of Caleb’s pulse. Caleb is alive. That’s all that matters.   
The anger begins to seep  back in, and Molly’s crying doesnt stop but he presses painfully hard now, sitting essentially astride the very surprised, clueless wizard, who doesn’t know what to do or where to put his hands. As the pressure grows and Caleb’s spine begins to creak, pushed against the cart wheel, he moves his hands from Molly’s back to his shoulders and pushes, weakly,   
“M-Mollymauk, I, this hurts. It hurts, now.”   
“I know.” Molly chokes against his neck, “It’s meant to.”   
But he lightens up, sits back without letting go, and Caleb drops his arms back to a loose embrace instead, and waits for Molly to calm down enough to explain just _why_ he’s here, straddling and crying on Caleb at gone three in the morning.

 

It takes a while. Too long for _Molly’s_ liking, he can’t imagine how uncomfortable Caleb must be, and he’s ready to apologise as he draws back, soaking wet, from his place pressed to Caleb’s neck.   
But Caleb is asleep. Completely out, though his arms are still loosely clasped around Molly, and it shocks every thought of speech away from Molly’s lips.   
He sits, still and silent in the rain for easily a full minute before chuckling to himself a little. He smiles, crinkles at the edges of his eyes with the affection, but he’s _so_ exhausted and he hates to be this wet.   
So he leans in one last time to kiss Caleb’s cheek, and then extracts himself as carefully as possible. Pauses once he’s free and ducks, pulls his coat out from under the cart, and sets it over Caleb.   
And then he crawls back under, back to his place, Jester’s tail twines with his in her sleep and he doesn’t mind at all, he looks to Caleb.   
And Molly sleeps.

 

They say nothing of it. Not a word is spoken between them of the midnight tears. When Molly gets up the next morning, Caleb is carefully sheltering a small flame that he holds just close enough to Molly’s previously sopping wet coat that it’s dried to just before _damp_ on the stages of dry-to-wet.   
It’s hard, with the drizzle, to pull any water away but he’s tried hard and it’s paid off, he hands the coat back to Molly wordlessly, and Molly stops him before he can walk away with a hand to his shoulder.   
Not a word passes between them, but Molly leans in, quickly, and kisses his cheek. Caleb covers the spot with his hand when he turns away, protects it from the rain, and they don’t speak about the night before.

 

It feels like forever before they _do_ speak of it. In reality, it's only two days.  
Caleb sits up against the head of the bed and looks at Nott, she’s curled in a ball at the other end, around Frumpkin, and he sighs. Caleb doesn’t sleep.   
He considers pacing the room, but the floor is stone brick and he isn’t light-footed, as Nott might be, so he stays put and fiddles with his copper wiring instead. Winds it around one wrist, unwinds it, winds it around the other instead. And again, and again, and Caleb doesn’t sleep.   
He spends an hour like that, fiddling with the repetitive task and letting his brain haze away, but he still isn’t tired when it hits him that, maybe, he’s not the only one awake.   
He takes a steadying breath as he unwinds the wire from his wrist and pulls it up to his mouth and whispers, so quietly,   
“ _Mollymauk, are you- are you awake? You can reply to this message._ ”   
He doesn’t think he’ll ever fall out of the habit of tacking that onto the end, it serves him a small smile either way, and he waits.   
  
In the room across the hall, Caleb’s voice in his ears shakes Molly from sleep. He recognises it as a Message, blearily and hums quietly to the stale air of the room,   
“ _I am now, is everything okay?_ ” and then crawls out of bed to find _something_ to put on, because he’s going to Caleb no matter the answer.   
He finds his coat before anything else, so that’s all he pulls on before he’s pulling the scimitar out from under the door and setting it on top of his clothes, Caleb’s voice is back,   
“ _Not_ wrong _, exactly. Would you come through? You can reply to this message._ ”   
Molly smiles as he opens his door and breathes,   
“ _Already there, darling._ ”   
And he is. Caleb’s room is two steps from his door, after all, and he can close his own door behind him quietly before Caleb opens his.   
And shocks Molly by almost _literally_ jumping straight into his arms, Molly barely has time to register before he’s pulling Caleb in and Caleb’s arms are thrown around his neck and the world seems to pause around them.   
“This is a welcome.” Molly says, smoothly, and feels Caleb laugh a little against him,   
“This is nothing compared to the welcome that you gave me last night.”   
Molly stiffens, and Caleb releases, steps into the hall and closes the door to his room behind him, and then it’s just Mollymauk and Caleb in a narrow hall, they don’t need to be so close that they’re pressed together but why wouldn’t they be? There’s nobody around to watch them.   
Molly lets out the breath he hadn’t realised that he’d been holding, and Caleb pulls his hands up, sets them to Molly’s waist, under the coat. Molly feels him twitch in shock as he realises that it is only skin meeting skin.   
“You cried.” Caleb says, and it isn’t accusatory, it is _soft_ , “Why?”   
“You _died_ .” Molly’s voice is accusatory, rough at the edges, and he takes hold of Caleb’s lapels and pulls, a little tighter toward him, “You didn’t get _up_ . I was going to _run her through,_ if you hadn’t popped up before I was done with the two on my back. Do you know how close I came to killing Nott?”   
Caleb pales, visibly, stares at Molly with wide eyes.   
“I know that it was for your protection, now. But Jester healed you, and you didn’t get up. I thought-” he chokes, tears springing up in the wake of the words, “I didn’t think you would _ever_ get up again and I, I- I- I can’t. I won’t lose you.”   
Caleb’s grip on Molly’s hips has been slowly, slowly tightening. Molly can feel the carefully bitten half-moons of his nails digging in.   
“It is almost amusing,” Caleb says, his voice languid, his grip betraying him, “To hear the silver-tongued Mollymauk Tealeaf, stuttering for me.”   
Molly just stares down at him. Silent.   
“Oh, put it to better use, Molly.” Caleb rolls his eyes, and that’s all it takes- Molly kisses him. Sweeps his arms up and around Caleb’s neck and revels in the bruises that he knows he’ll have on his hips with the vice grip that Caleb has on them.   
He feels Caleb’s heat, his breath, and knows he’s alive. And that’s enough. It has to be.


End file.
